Build your own game or animation platform with MB Led

For those of you do-it-yourself types, this could be an interesting project for you to look into. Called MB Led, it’s a game and animation platform using blocks of LEDs that can interact with each other. Inspired by the GLiP project (Great LED Interactive Puzzle), it was developed by students at Telecom ParisTech as a proof-of-concept project.

The platform takes independent blocks made up of 64 LED lights in an 8 x 8 configuration and creates a network of sorts with them. Using infrared IrDA transceivers, each block can send and receive data packets from neighboring blocks, allowing for some impressive interaction. Using a microprocessor coupled with 64Kb of RAM, each block can understand how many of its sides are occupied, and its position relative to the other blocks in the network. There is also a SD card reader that is installed in the unit’s board for game expansion.

Powered by two AA batteries, the blocks are capable of several things; they can play music, run animations, and of course play simple games like the all-time classic Snake. What is even more impressive is that each MB Led block can act totally independently, capable of the same things that a full network of blocks can do together.

As for the software that makes everything work together, the team chose the open sourced FreeRTOS, a real-time operating system for embedded devices. For animations, the program giftoGLiP was used. The team is working to make all the source code available for download, and has put the schematics online for people to use. Check out the awesome video of the MB Led in action below.